Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

jazz1

Contributor
Original poster
Aug 19, 2002
4,700
20,307
Mid-West USA
Does anyone know if this is free access under the 3G data plan? If so why does it ask for credentials?
 
Boingo is a commercial provider of Wi-Fi. It does require payment to use it. 3G is cell service and has nothing do do with Wi-Fi. If you are in the US, that means AT&T only for 3G service.
 
Under the 3G plan you get access to ATT WIFI points for free. Some of these points may be subleased to other providers such as WAYPORT at McD's or Boingo and if that is the case you can bypass Boingo and get in on the ATT SSID. Check to see which you are connecting to and select the ATT one when you have a choice.
 
Under the 3G plan you get access to ATT WIFI points for free. Some of these points may be subleased to other providers such as WAYPORT at McD's or Boingo and if that is the case you can bypass Boingo and get in on the ATT SSID. Check to see which you are connecting to and select the ATT one when you have a choice.

There was a list of other providers and AT&T was one of them. It still asked me for a user name and password. I guess I'll have to call AT&T. I held of today because they have enough problems with pre-orders of new iPhones.

Thanks the help.

Of note the hotel I'm in is using AT&T wifi and that was no problem at all. No login required.
 
There was a list of other providers and AT&T was one of them. It still asked me for a user name and password. I guess I'll have to call AT&T. I held of today because they have enough problems with pre-orders of new iPhones.

Thanks the help.

Of note the hotel I'm in is using AT&T wifi and that was no problem at all. No login required.

You could try using your AT&T account login. Is it the Boingo login page you get? Let us know if you resolve the problem or at least find the reason. Sometimes I get connected to the Wayport connection at my local McD's and if takes me to the free login splash screen even though I have the AT&T SSID as my preference, so I guess it has happened to me too. Maybe some of them are not set up properly?
 
I wasn't thinking clearly and tried my AT&T phone account. I'll try the iPad AT&T 3G sign-in on the way back in the airport.

Note. At the hotel I must have had 3G on. I got on AT&T wifi right away. This morning I tried and got hotel Wayport for charge. But I went back to preferences and turned on 3G and I got free wifi right away. Maybe the AT&T 3G carries the credentials so that the partner wifi hotspots recognize the iPad?
 
I wasn't thinking clearly and tried my AT&T phone account. I'll try the iPad AT&T 3G sign-in on the way back in the airport.

Note. At the hotel I must have had 3G on. I got on AT&T wifi right away. This morning I tried and got hotel Wayport for charge. But I went back to preferences and turned on 3G and I got free wifi right away. Maybe the AT&T 3G carries the credentials so that the partner wifi hotspots recognize the iPad?

That might be the case that you have to have your 3G connection working for it to verify you. Sometimes I forget to turn it on or it has dropped the 3G due to low signal at home and that may be why I get asked to login also.
I will test this and report.
 
I'm at McD's and have tried several modes. Turning 3G off does not seem to make a difference. if I switch to the Wayport connection I do get the logon page and then if I switch back to ATTWIFI I will still get the Wayport login page from then on. Some caching of credentials seems to be muddying things up.

I can select the AT&T icon/button from the Wayport logon page and get sent to an AT&T 3G account logon to use my free WIFI credentials from AT&T, so that works like it should.

If you get the Boingo logon screen look to see if there is an option for AT&T users to logon and bypass Boingo.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.